Almost 18 months after discontinuing all hardware devices running WebOS, Hewlett-Packard has announced that the operating system is being sold to LG. The South Korean company had apparently worked with HP on WebOS in the past. Now LG is planning to use it initially as a user interface in smart-TVs, and possibly other devices in the future.

HP will be keeping any WebOS patents and technology that have to do with "the cloud". Meanwhile LG will be getting the OS source-code and associated documentation. The engineering crew will also become part of LG and a number of related websites will, likewise, soon belong to the company. Licenses and patents involving the WebOS user interface will be transferred over in the deal as well.

HP had acquired Palm back in 2010 for the sum of $1.2 billion. Unfortunately details are scarce this time around, as both HP and LG refused to disclose the terms of the deal. One thing we do know is that the WebOS team will get to stay in in their HP offices in Silicon Valley, for the time being.